Rowlandson’s Dr. Syntax Visits a Boarding School for Young Ladies

Dr. Syntax Visits a Boarding School for Young Ladies

One of the most unexpected (and wonderful) finds in the Emporium at the 2012 JASNA meeting in NYC were the four Rowlandson prints that I purchased. One, entitled “Dr. Syntax Visits a Boarding School for Young Ladies” is charming. I included a number of images I found online to accompany this post. Except for the composition, t is remarkable how strikingly different each looks. My print resembles none of the ones displayed here – it is slightly yellowed and delicately colored, but the colors are neither bright nor faded. I can’t wait to frame it.

Dr syntax visits a boarding school for young ladies,1821. This image from the Yale Center of British Art is much paler than mine, in which the headmistress’s skirt is colored red and the young ladies in the foreground wear colored dresses.

This 190+ year old hand-colored aquatint came from The Tour of Doctor Syntax, published by Ackermann’s Repository in London from 1812-1821. Dr. Syntax, a British clergyman, sits under a tree next to a stern looking Lady Governess, who addresses the young pupils arrayed around them. The scene accompanies text in The Second Tour of Dr. Syntax, In Search of Consolation. The illustration reveals how Rowlandson works, outlining the figures with a reed pen and then delicately washing certain areas of the print with color. His pen and inks were then etched by a professional engraver, an artist in his own right. The impressions were then hand colored.

Rowlandson’s Prints

Rowlandson was prolific. Art historians deem his earlier works to be more artistic and carefully observed. As his reputation spread, he began to produce his designs in haste and the quality of his art began to suffer. His caricatures became predictable and in some instances overly exaggerated, but he never lost the facility with which he handled his pen.

In this series, Rowlandson created the illustrations first. Writer James Combe then wrote the narrative that accompanies the images. “This series is one of the best parodies of the more traditional narratives on journeys to different parts of England featuring more “serious” landscape illustrations and prose.” ( Prints from The Tours of Dr. Syntax, Prints With a Past.)

This print is similar to the one I purchased, but slightly more colorful. Image from Dr. Syntax’s Three Tours at Internet Archive, Cornell University Library

Doctor Syntax talks to the Young Ladies at Boarding School

Below sits the text (in verse) that accompanied this image, in which Dr. Syntax expounds on his listeners’ youth and character, and how they can learn from good example:

In the following page, Dr. Syntax exhorts his young charges to never swerve from virtue’s path and to take care of their good looks, for “flowing looks display’d to view, of black or brown or auburn hue, and well combin’d in various ways, a certain admiration raise…”:

Dr. Syntax does not want for words. In fact, he is a bit of a windbag. How those girls could sit enraptured during this speech is a marvel to me. In this section the rich graces of the mind hold the beauty of the whole, the mortal form, th’ immortal soul.

I wonder if Dr. Syntax even drew breath! In this section the good doctor reinforces the concept that a woman’s place is in the home, overseeing the family and household.

The Doctor says his goodbye, admonishing the listeners to pay attention the kind preceptress, who “will explain what of this subject doth remain, and bring the whole before your view, to prove my solemn doctrine true.”

Sources: 

• Yale Center for British Art
• Bill’s Fine Prints 
• Art Project
• Internet Archives

Books:

• Rowlandson the caricaturist: a selection from his works, with anecdotal descriptions of his famous caricatures and a sketch of his life, times, and contemporaries, Volume 2 (Google eBook)Joseph Grego, Thomas Rowlandson, Chatto and Windus, 1880

• Dr. Syntax’s Three Tours Doctor Syntax’s three tours in search of the picturesque, consolation, and a wife. By William Combe. The original ed., complete and unabridged, with the life and adventures of the author, now first written, by John Camden Hotten. Eighty full page illustrations drawn and coloured after the originals by T. Rowlandson. Published 1868 by J. C. Hotten in London . Library of Congress, PR3359.C5 D6 1868

Other posts about the JASNA NYC 2012

• Shades from Jane Austen
•  Antique fans from the Regency Era

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Fighting Fires in Georgian London

Fire!

Can there be a more frightening word in Georgian London?  The great fire in 1666 changed the landscape of that city forever. Once a densely packed city riddled with overcrowded, wood-timbered houses and dark, narrow lanes, the fire led the way to a change in building regulations that ushered in brick and stone edifices, wider streets, and public squares. Even with improvements, a fire still presented a horrifically dangerous situation.

Thomas Rowlandson captures the scene with such realism in “Inn Yard on Fire” that one can smell the smoke and fear, and hear the horses neighing, people screaming, furniture breaking, and wagon wheels squealing as guests and staff run around trying to save themselves, their possessions, and each other.

Fire at the Inn, by Thomas Rowlandson

Panic and pandemonium ensue. A man contemplates tossing a mirror from the second story, another pours his ineffectual chamber pot over the flames. A side table has been tossed through the window, while an anxious woman descends a ladder.

People are in various states of dress and undress. Some help others, some are  overcome with panic. A disabled man is carried from danger in a wheel barrow, while a groom tries to calm two terrified horses.

Elements in Rowlandson’s cartoon show a direct association with classical language and Tobias Smollet. The young man saving the girl in distress is reminiscent of Giambologna’s statue of the Rape of the Sabine Women, as well as Peregrine Pickle’s heroic actions towards Emilia.

Rowlandson

Rape of the Sabine Women

Peregrine Pickle saves Emilia. Image @A World History of Art

Once a fire had gained as much ground as depicted in this illustration, there was little chance of saving the building. Rowlandson shows some people carrying out their belongings, while others were barely able to get dressed. By now an alarm had probably been sounded in the community. Bucket brigades, in which people were arrayed in long lines to the nearest well and passed buckets in a continuous motion, could probably put out a minor fire, but not one of this magnitude. In the 1800s, almost 150 years after the great fire, there was still no centralized fire brigade.

In 1680, a property developer named Nicholas Barbon introduced the first fire insurance, which initially insured buildings but not furniture, fittings, or goods.  Insurance companies began to proliferate and formed private fire brigades to protect their customers’ property.

Is this praying elderly couple trapped on the balcony?

In Rowlandson’s cartoon the most the inn keeper can hope for is that the brigade arrives in time to save his structure – if he is insured.  This was easier said than done, for many of London’s streets were not named, since many people could not read, and insured properties were difficult to find.

A couple on the second floor frantically attempt to save their belongings.

In the early 1800s the fire mark was developed. These plaques, sometimes brightly painted, would signal which properties were protected by insurance firms. Each fire brigade had its own unique plaque.

Fire mark on a building

If a fire started, the Fire Brigade was called. They looked for the fire mark and, provided it was the right one, the fire would be dealt with. Often the buildings were left to burn until the right company attended! Many of these insurance companies were to merge, including those of London, which merged in 1833 to form The London Fire Engine Establishment, whose first Fire Chief was James Braidwood. Braidwood had come to London after holding the position of the Chief Officer of Edinburgh Fire brigade. Edinburgh’s authorities had formed the first properly organised brigade in 1824. – History of the UK Fire and Rescue Service

1721 saw the invention by Richard Newsham of a new type of water engine that had a continuous jet of water.

There were quite a few fire brigades operating in London in the early 19th century and competition was keen. The companies hired sailors and watermen as part-time employees. An advantage of serving in this position was that these men were protected from being pressed into service, a not inconsiderable benefit during the Napoleonic wars.

Fighting the fire at the Customs House in February 1814.Image@British Museum

Buildings that had no insurance protection were left to burn, although attempts were made to save the surrounding buildings. Firemarks were essential to identify insured buildings:

Arrival of the fire engine, Thomas Rowlandson

Designs included, for Sun Fire Office: a large sun with a face; the Royal Exchange Assurance: their building; and Phoenix: obviously Phoenix rising from the ashes. Later fire marks were made of tin, copper, or similar material. These are more often called fire plates. They were more an advertising medium as most do not have a policy number stamped upon them. – Fire Marks: The First Logos of Insurance Companies

Illustration from Ackermann’s ”Microcosm of London” (1808) drawn by Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Pugin. Firefighters are tackling a fire which has broken out in houses at the Blackfriars Bridge. Teams of men operate hand pumped equipment. Image @Wikipedia

In 1833 companies in London merged to form The London Fire Engine Establishment, the first step to the various fire brigades being taken over by local government.

The Burning of Drury Lane Theatre from Westminster Bridge 1809. Artist unknown.  Image property of the Museum of London.

Equipment was still very basic but in 1721, Richard Newsham patented a ‘new water engine for the quenching and extinguishing of fires’. The pump provided a continuous jet of water with more force than before. This new fire engine became a standard until the early 19th century.

Newsham’s wood pumper, ca. 1731.

The men used the handles to pump the water from a lead-lined trough in the main body of the equipment. The apparatus was quite heavy and difficult to maneuver, but it represented a huge step forward in fire fighting technology. People continually ran back and forth to a water source to fill the trough with water. You could also attach a hose to aim the water to a specific location. During this time, however, hose-making was still in its infancy and many leaked. Water buckets and axes to hack out trapped people and create fire free perimeters were still regarded as standard fire fighting equipment.

The Burning of the Houses of Parliament, 1834 by William Mallord Turner. Such an event must have provided a spectacular yet horrifying scene for onlookers.

Steam powered appliances were first introduced in the 1850s, allowing a greater quantity of water to be guided onto a fire. With the invention of the internal combustion engine, these appliances were replaced in the early 1900s.

James Pollard (British, 1797-1867) London fire engines: The noble protectors of lives and property, 1823. Image @Olympia Art Antiques

This image by James Pollard, and engraved by R. Reeve, shows several insurance brigades hurrying to a fire.

The firemen, of the time, had little training and wore brightly coloured uniforms to distinguish themselves between the different brigades. During large fires they would become very tired through continual pumping of the appliances, and would offer bystanders ‘beer tokens’ in return for their help. – Insurance Firemen and their Equipment

Each company provided different liveries for their men, so that the fire fighters could easily be identified with a particular firm.All insurance firemen wore a large badge on their shoulder to show which insurance company they worked for.

Three uniforms of insurance firemen. All wear a badge

More on the topic:

• How has London Coped With Fires Since 1666?, PDF Document, Museum of London
• London’s Burning, Museum of London
• Not With their Property But with Their Lives
• Rowlandson Image: Lewis Walpole Library
• From Fire Marks to James Braid Wood, the Surveyor who set up the Fire Brigade
• The Wooden Fire Pumper
• The History of Firefighting

Cockburn’s theatre on fire, another dramatic caricature by Rowlandson.

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Street Cries of London

I sat on an outdoor balcony during lunch yesterday, editing some work and eating a salad, and was struck by the sounds of the city – the traffic whizzing by, the rattling chain of an old bicycle, the siren of a distant firetruck, the buzz of a lawn mower, the chirps and tweets of birds, and … almost no human voices. It was late and I was practically alone, and the heat was keeping pedestrians indoors.

Rowlandson's "Buy a trap, a rat trap, buy my trap"

London in the 18th 19th centuries was famous for its noises. The rattling of carriage wheels, the sounds of animal hooves as they were driven to market, and the cries of the street vendors competing with each other created a daily assault to auditory nerves. On hot days, people propped their windows open to capture the slightest breeze, thereby letting in the noise. In Richmond yesterday all I heard was the hum of air conditioners and fans, for windows were kept firmly shut allowing no city sounds in.

Jane Austen moved from the quiet rural life in Steventon to Bath, and I wonder how much the noise and dirt of city life affected her creativity. Some people cannot abide noise while they are writing. I wonder if this was the case with Jane?

Cries of London, "Buy my rat trap," Rowlandson

Captured in many illustrations by a number of artists over the centuries, the street Cries of London are still famous today, though the voices have died down. This illustration by Rowlandson illustrates the cry for rat traps. (My favorite rat trap is my terrier, Cody.) Color illustrations were expensive, much like color printing is today. Even fashion illustrations in ladies magazines came in two forms, color for those who could afford the cost and black and white for the frugally minded.

Today promises to be another scorcher. I will keep my windows shut again and the city noises out.

Click here to read my post about London Street Noises: The Enraged Musician by William Hogarth

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Dealing With a Physical Disability, Georgian Style

The Comforts of Bath, Thomas Rowlandson.

Almost everyone who visits my blog, Twitter account, and Facebook page knows I’ve broken my foot in two inconvenient places. Even with modern medical advances the most pleasant way to describe my experience is that it’s been a … pain. Literally and figuratively. This lover of walking 3-4 times a day with her dog has been sidelined. I’ve been sitting or lying down for a month, watching my bum grow two sizes. I’m a bit more mobile now and can hobble wearing an unwieldy boot.

How did people deal with this situation two-hundred years ago? I wondered as I stared at the ceiling with my foot propped up higher than my head. It certainly could not have been easy. Mrs. Mapp, or Crazy Sally, as she was known, was a famous London bone setter in the early 18th century. While she was unlucky in love, she made her fortune with her strength, boldness, and wonder-working cures.

Besides driving a profitable trade at home, she used to drive to town once a week in a coach and four and return again bearing away the crutches of her patients as trophies of honour. - Mrs. Mapp: The Bone-Setter, Book of Days, Robert Chamber, 1864

I doubt Mrs. Mapp would have bothered setting my foot. There was really nothing to manipulate. All it needed was rest and a good calcium-rich diet. How did people get round and about when they were hobbled in days of yore?

In my estimation, crutches resembled torture instruments more than helpmeets.

Beggar with one leg and a crutch. Image @Risky Regencies

This 1850 crutch is similar to the one depicted in the image above. It was not adjustable, and rags were wound around the top to make the crutch less painful. Even with ample padding on the modern crutch, my underarms became sore. I can only imagine how much discomfort the old models offered.

Wheelchair, Barry Lyndon

Wheelchairs were invented early in the history of mankind. In 530 B.C. a wheeled child’s bed made an appearance on a Greek vase, and in 525 A.D. a wheelchair was depicted on a Chinese print. By the 17th century, the patient’s comfort began to be taken into account.

Paralytic woman in wheelchair, 1821. Image @Museum of London

During the 18th century the Bath chair was born. Invented by John Dawson, the three-wheeled chairs remained popular all through the 19th century.

3-wheeled Bath chair. Image @BBC

• Setting a Broken Bone: 19th Century Medical Treatment Was Not for Sissies
• Sedan Chairs: An Efficient Mode of Transportation in Georgian London and Bath
• BBC: History of the World. Bath Chair
• Reassessing What We Collect: Paralytic woman

This Rowlandson caricature depicts the ill visiting the Pump Room to take the waters. Note the sedan chair at left being carried inside the room, the man in the wheelchair, and the man walking with two canes.

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Ladies Underdrawers in Regency Times: Regency Underwear

Copyright (a) Jane Austen’s World. Gentle Readers, The previous post elicited a question about Regency underdrawers or a lady’s unmentionables. My answer was so long that I decided to create a new post from it.

1742 and 1794 fashion silhouette contrast

Drawers, which made their first serious appearance in 1806, and were fashioned after men’s underdrawers, were still optional during 1810. They would be worn more frequently as the century progressed. Underdrawers were considered risque, for the garments resembled men’s pant legs.  Even if the garments were worn, they did not resemble the pretty underdrawers that we associate with the Victorian era.

Image of early under drawers

As you can see in this image, early ladies underdrawers consisted of two tubes of cloth that were tied to the waist, allowing a woman to, uhm, attend to her business without having to remove too many clothes. In an era without indoor plumbing, this must have been an important consideration.

I recently viewed a shameless cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson of a group of travelers (3 ladies and a gent, all family members), who were attending to their calls of nature on the side of the road. Because the image is quite vulgar, which many of Rowlandson’s images tend to be, I will only link to it. From the headdresses that the ladies are wearing, this cartoon was drawn much earlier than 1806. As you can see, no underdrawers obstructed the group from relieving their most pressing needs.

Detail of Rowlandson's Exhibition Staircase, 1800

Rowlandson’s Exhibition Staircase cartoon has a given date of 1800. The ladies’ tumble down a steep, crowded staircase forcibly reminds us that underdrawers were still a fashion consideration for the future.

Underdrawers belonging to the Duchess of Kent, 1810-1820. *Image@Regency Society of America Pro Boards

By 1820, wearing drawers was still optional, but by the 1850′s, the caged hooped skirts made them a necessity, for a hoop could be wildly unpredictable. One wrong swinging move or errant gust of wind, and a lady’s most delicate (or indelicate) parts would appear in full view. The 1956 version of The King and I contains one of my favorite scenes in which the King’s wives wear Western dresses for the first time. When the King enters, they immediately drop down to bow to him. Their hooped skirts swung straight up in the air, revealing their bare bottoms and shocking Anna, who had not anticipated such an END (ahem) to her well-meant scheme.

Caged crinoline

Needless to say, by the mid-19th century, ladies wore drawers as a matter of course.

*Regency Society of America Pro Boards

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Family Dinners, Regency Style

Gentle readers, I am taking a short hiatus from this blog for Thanksgiving week. Meanwhile, enjoy these images of people dining in days of yore…

Dining for most people was a simple affair and food was taken from the land. Many families, unless their house was large enough to accommodate a dining room, ate in the kitchen.

Notice in this image of a family sharing a meal by Thomas Rowlandson (from The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith), that the meal is eaten during the day and near the fire.

The rich could afford to eat by candlelight, as in this early 20th C. image of a Georgian dinner scene.

For some, like the Prince Regent, dinners were elaborate affairs.

For other families the meal was more basic and simple.

Family Meal

The hours in which people ate meals were changing:

In the beginning of the sixteenth century in England, dinner, the main meal of the day, used to begin at 11:00AM. Meals tended over time to be eaten later and later in the day: by the eighteenth century, dinner was eaten at about 3:00PM…By the early nineteenth century, lunch, what Palmer in Moveable Feasts calls “the furtive snack,” had become a sit-down meal at the dning table in the middle of the day. Upper-class people were eating breakfast earlier, and dinner later, than they had formerly done…in 1808…dinner was now a late meal and supper a snack taken at the very end of the day before people retired to bed. For a long time luncheon was a very upper-class habit; ordinarily working people dined in the early evening, and contented themselves as they had done for centuries with a mid-day snack…Supper now means a light evening meal that replaces dinner; such a meal is especially popular if people have eaten a heavy lunch - The Rituals of Dinner, Margaret Visser [Penguid:New York] 1991 (p. 159-160) – Food Timeline

Meat made up a large part of the Regency diet, even for the middle class. For most people living in London, the animals had to be brought a long way to market. Due to the length of the journey, the quality of meat was often poor. In contrast, venison and game procured from country estates and served fresh was often considered prize meat.

The Breedwell Family, Thomas Rowlandson

Families tended to be large and extended. In this boisterous family scene by Rowlandson, the Breedwells obviously bred beyond “the heir and the spare.”

Desserts, Isabella Beaton

Desserts made up the last course of the meal. Even for the middle class this course was elaborate and plentiful, but for the rich it was spectacular.

Walled kitchen garden

Kitchen gardens provided fresh produce during the growing season. The very rich grew fruits and vegetables in hot houses, but most people ate meat, soups, or bread throughout the year. Fruit and vegetables were preserved, or, as in the case of apples and root vegetables, stored through the winter.

Seafood had to be served fresh and within hours of its harvest. Chances were that this tavern, where oysters were served on a platter, sits in a geographic area by the sea.

Life in Yorkshire

Elegant, or simple, the family meal meant togetherness.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone

More on the topic:

• Types of Food in the Eighteenth Century
• Daily Life in the Regency Era: Meal Schedules
• The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary: An 18th Century Cookery Book
• A Man’s Diversion in the Regency Era: The Tavern Meal
• A Regency Meal in December
• A Feast for a Prince
• Food in the Regency Era: BBC Style
• Hannah Glasse and the Art of Cookery
• Harvest Festival
• Food and Dining

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The Comforts of Bath, 1798: Thomas Rowlandson

In 1798, the famous caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson drew The Comforts of Bath, a series of satiric drawings. The cartoons were used to illustrate the 1858 edition of the New Bath Guide, written by Christopher Anstey and first published in 1766.* Rowlandson depicted both the social and medical scene in Bath just before the period described by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, and by Georgette Heyer in her Regency romances.

The Portrait, Comforts of Bath, 1798, Thomas Rowlandson

In this post I combined Rowlandson’s images with excerpts from an 1811 guidebook, A new guide through Bath and its environs By Richard Warner. The scenes depict the use of mineral water therapy for the invalids who flocked to Bath, a city whose fashionable post-Nash reputation was already well past its prime and whose medical men were generally regarded as quacks or, worse, “potential murderers”. The rotund gentleman in front and center of all these scenes (who undoubtedly suffered from gout, a painful rich man’s disease), was conjectured to be based after Tobias Smollet’s Mr. Bramble. In the pictorial’s subtext, notice how “Mr. Bramble’s” young wife (companion or daughter) flirts with the young officer who boldly woos her (Image above). Even while satirizing them, Rowlandson gets the social details just right. Underneath each image sits a quote from the guidebook.

King Bladud's Bath, Comforts of Bath, Rowlandson

It is fit for the patient when he goeth into the bath to defend those parts which are apt to be offended by the bath, as to have his head well covered from the air and wind and from the vapours arising from the bath, also his kidneys if they be subject to the stone, anointed with some cooling unguents as rosatum comitiffs infrigidans Galeni Santo linum &c. Also, to begin gently with the bath till his body be inured to it, and to be quiet from swimming or much motion which may offend the head by sending up vapours thither at his coming forth, to have his body well dryed and to rest in his bed an hour and sweat, etc.” – A New Guide Through Bath, 1811

The Pump Room, The Comforts of Bath, 1798, Rowlandson

The new Pump Room supplied water from a covered pump. Before the room was built, the populace drank the waters in the open air. But the new rooms allowed them to

…  take the exercise prescribed to them sheltered from the inclemency of the weather. The work was accordingly begun in 1704, finished two years afterwards, and opened for the reception of the company under the auspices of Mr Nash, who had just then become the Arbiter Elegantiarum of Bath…A New Guide Through Bath, 1811

Black and White detail of above print

In the year 1751 [The Pump] Room was enlarged. Accommodated with a beautiful Portico stretching from it in a northern direction in 1786, and adorned with superb Western Frontispiece in 1791, The Corporation further beautified the city in 1796 by taking down the old Pump Room entirely and building on its site the much larger and more magnificent edifice known at present by that name…A New Guide Through Bath, 1811

Public Breakfast, The Comforts of Bath, 1798, Rowlandson

Pertaining to the construction of  the Harrison rooms and the Assembly Rooms:

Temporary booths had hitherto been the only places in which the company could drink their tea and divert themselves with cards, but Mr Harrison, a man of spirit and speculation, perceiving that a building of this nature was much wanted and would probably make him a very suitable return, undertook at the suggestion of Mr Nash to erect a large and commodious room for the purpose of receiving the company.  The succes of this attempt induced a similar one in the year 1728, when another large room was built by Mr Thayer.  A regular system of pleasurable amusements commenced from this period, and the gay routine of public breakfasts, morning concerts, noon card parties, evening promenades, and nocturnal balls rolled on in an endless and diversified succession. - A New Guide Through Bath, 1811

Company at Play, The Comforts of Bath, Rowlandson

Rules card games:

That no persons be permitted to play with cards left by another party;  That no hazard or unlawful game of any sort be allowed in these Rooms on any account whatever nor any cards on Sundays...A New Guide Through Bath, 1811

The Concert, Bath Chambers, Rowlandson

For music sweet music has charms to controul; And tune up each passion that ruffles the soul; What things have I read and what stories been told; Of feats that were done by musicians of old – The New Bath Guide, 1779

Dinner, Comforts of Bath, 1798

Bath has little trade and no manufactures; the higher clafles of people and their dependents conftitute the chief part of the population, and the number of the lower clafles being but fmall…A New Guide Through Bath, 1811

Bath Races, Rowlandson

More on the topic:

• Thomas Rowlandson’s “The Comforts of Bath”  (1798)
• New Bath Guide, Christopher Anstey, 1779, Google book
• *From Hogarth to Rowlandson,medicine in art in eighteenth-century Britain By Fiona Haslam, 1996,  p 174
• In the bowels of the novel: The exchange of fluids in the Beau Monde
• Beechen Cliff, the Arts and Natural Surroundings
• The Lower Assembly Rooms and Bath Society
• Dancing in Regency Bath
• The Pump Room: Little-Known and Well-Known Facts

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