Reviewed by Brenda S. Cox
The Journal of a Georgian Gentleman: The Life and Times of Richard Hall, 1729-1801 provides fascinating insights into Jane Austen’s England.
The Journal of a Georgian Gentleman, by Mike Rendell, explores 18th century life in England
Richard Hall was a tradesman, a hosier who made stockings in a shop near London Bridge. Like the Coles in Emma, he “was of low origin, in trade,” but moved up in society as he became wealthier. Hall accumulated his fortune through hard work, marriage, inheritance, and investments. From selling silk stockings, he moved into selling fine fabrics, silver buckles, and other fashionable accessories. Hall eventually owned several estates, and retired as a country gentleman.
I asked the author, Mike Rendell, to tell us more about how he wrote this book.
Rendell says he inherited “a vast pile of old family papers, . . . stuffed into tea chests and boxes in the back of the garage” in his grandmother’s house. He focused on the papers related to Richard Hall and found it “a fascinating voyage of discovery.”
This trunk was full of papers from the eighteenth century.
Rendell continues, “For instance, if he [Richard Hall] recorded in his diary that he had ‘visited the museum’ it made me research the origins of the British Museum, realizing that he was one of the earliest visitors. Which led on to researching what he might have seen, etc.”
He adds, “Writing my first book opened my eyes to a great deal about the world in which Jane [Austen] was brought up. I love her works – especially P&P and I must admit to binge-watching the entire BBC version in a single sitting, at least twice a year!”
In the context of Richard Hall’s story, Rendell tells us about many aspects of life in the eighteenth century, based on his extensive research. For example:
Religion
Richard Hall was a Baptist, one of the Dissenter (non-Church of England) groups in Austen’s England. This meant that even though Hall loved learning, he was not able to attend university. Oxford and Cambridge, the two English universities, would not give degrees to Dissenters. Hall could have studied in Holland, but his family decided to bring him directly into their hosiery business instead.
Richard Hall’s grandfather and father were Baptists, and Richard attended a Baptist church and listened to sermons by the famous Baptist preacher Dr. John Gill for many years. Richard also collected printed sermons by Dr. Gill. However, it was not until Richard was 36 that he “gave in his experience” and was baptized. Rendell explains that “giving in his experience” meant “explaining before the whole church at Carter Lane in Southwark how he had come to faith in Christ.”
Some of the leaders of the English Baptists of the time are part of Hall’s story, as well as disputes and divisions between Baptist churches.
Hall sometimes attended Anglican churches, and was even a churchwarden for a time. Rendell comments, “The fact that he was a Baptist did not mean that he was unwilling to attend Church of England services – just as long as the gospel was being preached.”
Methodists were another important movement in Hall’s England, though they were still part of the Anglican Church for most of Hall’s lifetime. One of Hall’s relatives, William Seward, became an early Methodist minister, preaching to open-air crowds. Rendell writes that Seward “died after being hit by a stone on the back of the head while preaching to a crowd at Hay-on-Wye, on 22 October 1740 – one of the first Methodist martyrs.”
Silhouette of Richard Hall, probably “taken” (cut out) by his daughter Martha. In 1777 Martha “gave her experience” and was baptized in a Baptist church, as her father had done.
Science
Rendell often explains advances in science that affected Hall’s life (and Jane Austen’s). He writes, “By the standards of his day . . . Richard was a well-educated man. Above all, he was a product of his time – there was a thirst for knowledge all around Richard as he grew up. There were new ideas in religion, in philosophy, in art and in architecture. This was the age of the grand tour, of trade developments with the Far East, and a new awareness of the planets and astronomy as well as an interest in chemistry and physics. It was a time when the landed gentry were experimenting with new farming methods – inspired by ‘Turnip’ Townsend and Jethro Tull – and where a nascent industrial revolution was making its faltering first steps.” Richard wrote down many scientific “facts”—or fictions—some of which are listed in an appendix.
Surprisingly, Richard Hall records several times that he saw the Aurora Borealis in southern England. Apparently, the aurora was sighted many times in Austen’s England, though it has since migrated northward.
Rendell also tells us about an invention that greatly improved transportation: the development of macadam roads. These were named for the Scotsman John McAdam who invented the process. When bitumen (tar) was added in the nineteenth century, such roads were called “tar-macadamised”: a word eventually shortened to “tarmac.”
Travel was quite an adventure in Austen’s time. Richard Hall made this detailed paper cutout of a coach and four, showing one of the fastest means of transportation available at the time. Hall also did cutouts of a coach and four about to crash because of a boulder in the road, and a one-horse coach being held up by a highwayman.
Medicine
Richard Hall’s small daughter was inoculated against smallpox, which meant she was given the actual disease. She had “between two and three hundred pustules.” But Richard writes that about three weeks later, “Through the goodness of God . . . the Dear Baby finally recovered from inoculation.”
About ten years later, inoculation–giving the patient a hopefully mild case of smallpox–was replaced by vaccination. Dr. Edward Jenner developed this technique, where patients were given cowpox rather than smallpox to develop their immunity. However, Jenner became a member of the Royal Society (of scientists) not for his work on vaccination, but for his observations of cuckoos and their habits! He also experimented with hydrogen-filled balloons. The “naturalists” (not yet called “scientists”) of this age were interested in topics that nowadays we would separate into many different branches of science.
When Hall’s first wife, Eleanor, died of a stroke, he cut this tiny Chinese pagoda in memoriam, with her name, age, and date of death. Rendell says it is “like
lace. It is just an inch and a quarter across and most probably fitted in between the outer and inner cases of his pocket watch. In other words it was worn next to his heart. Very romantic!”
Weather
Hall also noted the weather. In 1783 he refers often “to a stifling heat, a constant haze, and to huge electrical storms which illuminated the ash cloud in a fearsome manner.” These were the effects of a huge volcanic eruption in Iceland, the Laki volcano. This eruption, the most catastrophic in history, caused an estimated two million deaths worldwide, and wiped out a quarter of the population of Iceland. In England, the harvest failed, cattle died, and about 23,000 people died of lung damage and respiratory failure.
Highwaymen were another danger in Austen’s England. In this paper cutting by Richard Hall, a criminal, possibly a highwayman, hangs on the gallows while spectators are unconcerned.
Language
Richard Hall wrote a list for himself of words that sound different than they look. He gives the spelling, then the pronunciation, which helps us see how people in his area and level of society spoke. A few examples:
Apron—Apurn
Chaise—Shaze
Cucumber—Cowcumber
Sheriff—Shreeve
Birmingham—Brummijum
Nurse—Nus
Dictionary—Dixnary
The history of some words are also explained. For example, the word “gossip” was a contraction of “God’s siblings.” Such women helped mothers in childbirth. The “gossips” offered sympathy, kept men away, and chattered in order to keep up the mother’s spirits throughout her labor.
Museums and Exhibitions
Rendell describes several museums and exhibitions that Hall visited. One of the most intriguing is Cox’s Museum, which Hall and his wife visited the year Austen was born. It featured rooms full of “bejewelled automata.” The most famous was a life-size silver swan, still a popular exhibit at the Bowes Museum in Durham (northern England). The Museum says it “rests on a stream made of twisted glass rods interspersed with silver fish. When the mechanism is wound up, the glass rods rotate, the music begins, and the Swan twists its head to the left and right and appears to preen its back. It then appears to sight a fish in the water below and bends down to catch it, which it then swallows as the music stops and it resumes its upright position.” No less a personage than Mark Twain admired this swan and wrote about it in The Innocents Abroad.
Richard Hall’s upbringing stressed values which still resonate with many people today. Rendell writes, “. . .from an early age it had been instilled into Richard that there were only three things which could help stop the fall into the abyss of poverty, sickness and death. The first was a strong belief in the Lord, and that without faith you got nowhere. The second was the importance of education. The third was that you got nothing without working hard for it. These were the cornerstones of his upbringing – and of the whole of his subsequent life.”
Richard Hall was an artist of paper cutting. He cut out everyday objects and scenes. Many, like this finely-done rapier, were found among his books and journals.
And Much More
The Journal of a Georgian Gentleman is full of treasures for those of us who love reading about Jane Austen’s time period. We learn about guilds, clothing, food, disasters, transportation, prices, medical advances, explorers, and much more.
To Rendell, Richard Hall “came across as a bit of a joyless, pious individual but then I thought: hang on, he had to face exactly the same problems as we do today – illness, worries about the business, problems with a son who was a mischief maker at school, problems with the drains etc etc. When he re-married he fell out with his children because they didn’t approve of his new bride – and they excommunicated him [avoided and ignored him] for the rest of his life. In that sense his life was just as much of a mess as the ones we lead today!”
While Rendell originally wrote this story for his own family, when he decided to make it widely available he found he needed to promote it. He ended up in a surprising job. He says, “I had never before tried public speaking but quickly found that I loved it – and ended up with a totally new ‘career’ as a cruise ship lecturer (when Covid 19 permits!) travelling the world and talking about everyday life in the 18th Century. . . . These talks include talks about Jane Austen – in particular about the different adaptations, prequels, sequels, etc. of Pride and Prejudice – as well as talks about the venues used in the various films of Jane’s books. I also write articles for Jane Austen’s Regency World. . . . One thing led to another and I have now had a dozen books published, with two more in the pipeline.”
Mike Rendell’s books include topics such as Astley’s Circus (Astley’s is mentioned in Emma and in one of Jane Austen’s letters), Trailblazing Women of the Georgian Era, Pirates and Privateers in the 18th Century, and more. 18th Century Paper Cutting shows the illustrations used in this article, along with other lovely paper cuttings by Richard Hall. See Mike Rendell’s blog at mikerendell.com for more of Mike’s books and blog posts.
The Journal of a Georgian Gentleman is available from amazon in the US and the UK. It is offered on kindle unlimited. If you order a paperback copy from Mike Rendell (Georgiangent on amazon.co.uk), he says, “if anyone orders a copy I will ask (through amazon) and see if they want a personal dedication/signed copy before popping it in the post.” (It is listed there as a hardback but is actually a paperback.)
By the way, Rendell pointed out that Jane Austen’s nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, also did paper cutting (or silhouettes). You can see examples of James’s work in Life in the Country. There is also a well-known silhouette of Jane’s brother Edward being presented to the Knight family; that one was done by a London artist, William Wellings.
The Journal of a Georgian Gentleman gives us valuable insights into the life of an Austen-era tradesman who became a country gentleman. What would you most like to know about the life of such a person?
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Brenda S. Cox blogs about Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen, and is currently working on a book entitled Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England. You can also find her on Facebook.
A very interesting article Brenda. If you go to The Science Museum in Kensington there is a whole room with 18th century scientific instruments. It is sometimes strange to think that the first steam trains and industrial steam engines were around in Jane’s time and actually long before she was born..Examples of the first steam engines are in the Science Museum too by the way. Her novels give no inkling about the Enlightenment or if there is its well hidden. I am reading a book about Joseph Banks, the great botanist, at the moment. Exploration and Discovery was going at a pace in the late 18th and early 19th century. Actually exploration has never stopped. Great article. All the best, Tony
It’s bothered me , since I read your article Brenda and my comment about no reference to the Enlightenment in Jane Austen’s novels. For somebody living at that time surely it must have affected her writing even subliminally.
Then it dawned on me. In Mansfield Park she mentions Humphrey Repton.Teoton the great landscape Gardner was using the new ideas about beauty and nature of the time and probably planting trees from around the world brought here by the explorers. She mentions flowers often in her letters. I am not a botanist but I bet some came here from other parts of the world. Bath of course with its doctors and nee medical procedures, the architecture of Bath and the growing cities and towns came out of European travels and the Palladian movement. All those country estates were using the new concepts and techniques … etc abs so forth. Of course the Enlightenment is there. I suppose her exploration of relationships is new too. I feel better now. 😅😂
She also mentions the new ideas when she pokes fun at the ‘picturesque’ and also at gothic novels which were also a new way of self expression
Thanks for these thoughts, Tony. One of the things I look at on my blog is science in Austen’s England. Mansfield Park, besides landscape gardening, has references to astronomy (stargazing), botany (the evergreens), and memory (would we call that neuroscience?). In Emma, of course, there are references to medical ideas of the time (though not necessarily orthodox ones), and developments in agriculture. All these show us that Austen knew what was happening in the sciences, though of course she doesn’t develop the ideas much since they are peripheral to her plots. Do you, or do any other readers, find more scientific references in Austen’s novels?
The Enlightenment came about due to Lucretius, and Epicurious – see my comment below.
Vic, thanks for this fascinating post via Brenda. Reading about Richard Hall, I noticed his dates are almost the same as Virginian George Wythe, December 3, 1726 – June 8, 1806. Whyte was Thomas Jefferson’s professor and mentor. In common among educated men at the time was curiosity about science, medicine, the natural world and the development of the rights of man. This was the legacy of the Georgian world. One of the driving forces behind it was the popularity of the writing of Lucretius, which had a trickle down effect in society.
I certainly recommend this book which has been one of my go-to books when writing.
I’ve not quite finished reading the book, but find it fascinating. There’s so many details that as both an American and product of the 20th century, I had little knowledge of. I will use the information to make my own historical fiction writing more authentic. A writer needs not only a story but in the case if historical fiction or sci-fi, a setting which impacts the protagonist and story. When I read Austen fanfic that has gross errors of the times, it throws me out of the story.
Thank you for a great summary of the book.
I was interested in Richard Hall’s list of words that sound (very) different when spoken vs the way they are spelled. I wonder if he ever made comments on the differences in the way words were pronounced in different areas of England. It must have been ridiculously difficult for people to become literate when their spoken language was SO far off the written. Did he comment, I wonder, on the words that originated as French to explain their different pronunciations?
I find that my reading of historical romances has lead me to do considerable historical researching. When an author mentions the Corn Laws or Peterloo or even street names in London, zoom, I’m off to Google to learn more. I’d love to read about Richard Hall’s life, if I can fit it into my 400+ backlog of books.
I suspect that my ancestor (Richard was my 4x great grandfather) did not want to sound like a country bumpkin, so jotted down those ‘difficult’ words where he had to beware of the pronunciation. So, ‘toilet’ became ‘twaylet’ or even ‘twilight’. He also seems to have got himself into a bit of a muddle with dropped and added ‘haitches’ – so he wrote of ‘hartichokes’. He never noted regional differences and did not comment specifically on words of French origin. But there again, I have all his schoolbooks and can see that his written French was far above my schoolboy standard! I suspect that he would have moved fairly effortlessly between the two languages. In particular because he was in the business of making stockings and selling fashion accessories I am sure that many of the fabrics etc would have been described in French, rather than in an anglicized version.
He also made meticulous notes about grammar and punctuation – something sadly lacking in importance today but clearly of crucial significance 250 years ago!
is there enough to produce a small monograph regarding the use and changes in language?
Sarah, Have you read the Professor and the Madman? It’s a wonderful book about the development of the English Oxford Dictionary and the need for regularizing the spelling and meaning and origin of words. It reads like a fast-speeding novel and can now be purchased for $4 or $5.
gone on my wish list.
I’d still be interested in a full listing of Richard Hall’s ruminations on the subject. Maybe a blog-post, Mike?
Thanks for that book recommendation, Vic. I’ve just requested The Professor and the Madman from my library! I love the history of language.
A good businessman would of course be able to communicate in writing with his French customers, but without the ability to speak to each other perhaps he wasn’t aware of the pronunciation differences? Of course he probably was formally taught French and didn’t just teach himself to write in French.
Thank you, Vic and Mike Rendell, for informing us of another interesting book on this period’s cultural background. I just ordered it through Amazon. Hopefully it will be signed by the author.
I very much enjoyed Susannah Fullerton’s Jane Austen and Crime. I was thunderstruck that there was no crime of personal rape, and that the injury was viewed as an offense to family standing, by devaluing the daughter’s marriage prospects, which makes Mrs. Bennet’s reaction more understandable. Bringing back the custom of dueling might make us moderns more civil, and bring a rare courtesy to social media and political debates😳.
Thank you for your comment, Leslie. This is a minor correction. Brenda Cox is now a regular administrator and contributor to this blog. She wrote this wonderful post. :)
Not only was the Georgian era extraordinarily lenient where rape was concerned but it was also far stricter on offences against property than against the person, compared to modern laws. Added to that: even offences carrying the death penalty could be tried from start to finish in less than twenty minutes and defendants often had little or no legal representation. Justice is often described as being blind but if you trawl through the online records of the Old Bailey – something I love doing – you realize just how unfair and class-ridden justice had become. Richard Hall describes attending jury service over three days in 1780 and it is staggering to see how many cases were tried ‘right before his eyes’ in those three days.
Very true. Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1749), has a major plot point poor Tom’s incarceration and narrow escape from the swift operation of justice, as well as the close call of naval impressment. It is also inconceivable to modern readers how barbaric Naval discipline was during Austen’s time, and how men were subject to impressment. I like the naval novels of Austen contemporary Frederick Marryat, as so many of Austen’s heroes as well as friends and relatives would have been at sea.
I live near Wimbledon in South London. There is a house with lovley Gothic arched windows next to Wimbledon Green opposite the Hand in Hand pub. It has a blue plaque on it. Captain Marryatt the author of The Children of The New Forest Lived here. A lot of famous people have lived in Wimbledon. It’s not just about tennis!!Ha! Ha!
Thanks, Leslie. As it happens, I’m in the middle of reading Jane Austen and Crime right now. A fascinating book! The Georgian crime laws show that their cultural values and viewpoints were quite different than ours are today. I know you’re joking about dueling! But you might be interested to know that at the time it was an extremely serious subject. William Wilberforce, who got the slave trade abolished, said duelers risked “rushing into the presence of our Maker in the very act of offending him,” in other words, they risked dying while they were committing murder. And duels were often fought, and to the death, for what now seem to us very trivial reasons. So I think I’d rather see candidates mud-slinging with words (much as I hate that), than killing each other with guns! (Another reminder of how different Jane Austen’s world was from ours. :-)
Yes, your points are good ones. But since mankind insists on having a violent temperament at least dueling established some equitable ground rules and provided for objective supervision of fair play. And (at least my) reading of the Sermon on the Mount seems to say that fairly common sins, like cursing our neighbor in our private heart, damn us, so the duelists will have plenty of company😳.
It IS very strange how different the Georgian world view was from our own. Despite my sincere love of Austen, when immersed in one of her novels, I often think that my, and many readers, position in her world would not be enviable. We would not be invited to a ball at a great estate, but would be a governess (like poor Jane Fairfax), servant, or shop owner, intent on conquering society, prosperous but derided, like the Coles or Sir William Lucas. Even if we were a talented and hard working farmer, like Emma’s Mr. Martin, we couldn’t be visited socially, or like the Hayters in Persuasion, would be ignored by snobby relatives.
It is sobering to realize that despite her genius, Jane Austen herself received only one ineligible offer of marriage, due to her poverty.
I am so delighted you have enjoyed my book on ‘Jane Austen and Crime’. What I wanted to show was how JA’s contemporary readers would have reacted to such crimes as duelling, poaching, gambling and adultery. We have lost some of that knowledge today and of course tend to judge them from a modern standpoint.
Thanks for jumping into the discussion, Susannah! I love learning about how Austen’s contemporaries would have understood and reacted to the references in her novels. Your section on adultery is particularly interesting because of the connections to Mansfield Park. And I’m finding great new insights on many topics throughout Jane Austen and Crime. Thanks!
Thanks, Susannah, I did very much enjoy it and will reread soon as it was very mindboggling. Even nuances like who was allowed to shoot clarified subtle points in Austen’s novels. While I enjoyed the movie Lost In Austen, I think it lost many opportunities to delineate just how strange the Georgian world would really have been to the interloper played by Jemima Rooper. I would like to see a more authentic film treatment of this issue.
and I just ordered it as my royalties came in today.
Fascinating look into the life of a gentleman.
Love the scherenschnitte.
denise
Glad you like the paper cuts – they are great fun. I was amazed to find them interleaved between pages of the diaries. Richard must have had excellent eyesight – and a very steady hand. I gather that the hobby was made popular in Britain by the Georgian royal family. Oddly, many of the exponents were men, whereas nowadays many see it as a predominately female hobby. In my case it isn’t that it is not macho enough – I just don’t have a sufficiently steady hand! But I was delighted to be able to use the images – many of them showing everyday life – because it meant that they were free from copyright issues (always an important factor when writing a book with illustrations).
Excellent article. I will be ordering a copy. Fascinating subject.
Thank you all for these great responses, and thank you, Mike, for your answers about the book! I do hope you will write a blog post about Richard’s comments about language, since that’s also a topic that fascinates me.