Back to Top

Category: Regency

In my last post I talked about the difference between morning gowns and walking costumes and other “informal” types of dress. Today we’re going to take a peek at riding habits.

Habits are something you’re probably all familiar with, at least in concept. They’re composed of an extra-long skirt and a spencer jacket. They might also involve a waistcoat and a habit shirt (worn with a cravat), or with a chemisette with a frill for a more feminine look.  Sometimes they follow the high-waisted silhouette of the Regency era, and sometimes they don’t (a rare chance to show off your heroine’s waist!). Most often, they’re made of wool of some kind (stuff, bath coating, kerseymere, etc.), but there are extant examples of summer habits made of linen.

Habits are worn with some kind of hat, gloves, and either pumps or low half-boots (yes, pumps!). No tall riding boots for women as far as I can document (I’ve seen ONE cartoon of a woman in riding boots, but she was also shown with 5 o’clock shadow so we can hardly take her adoption of a masculine boot seriously).

First is this sketch of an extant 1810 habit by Janet Arnold for her book, Patterns of Fashion. It’s particularly great because Arnold details all the innards of the garment, including just how the skirt stays up (it’s really a “bodiced petticoat”), and we get to see the watch pocket, and the fact that their are hook and eyes connecting the jacket and the skirt. The pattern also lays out the series of tapes on the inside of the skirt that can be used to loop it up invisibly so that the train/length is hidden and you can walk.

1810 habit

Habit, 1810 (sketch by Janet Arnold)

1810 habit detail

Detail of 1810 Habit.

Here are couple of basic habits. They could be masculine in style (as is the à la militaire one from 1817 with its “lacing”), or they could be  feminine and frilly (I can’t find a public source for this one, so I’m sending you to Candice Hern’s site for all the filly glory).

1803habit

Habit, 1803

1817 habit

Habit, 1817

 

 

 

 

I’m super excited to share the news that I’ll be giving THREE workshops at next year’s Historical Novel Society conference in Portland. I’m giving my popular History of Underthings workshop, co-presenting my Georgian and Victorian “kickshaws” workshop with Delilah Marvelle, and I’ll be giving the big Friday night kickoff workshop: Hooch Through History. If you want to join me, registration opens at the end of the month.

As soon as I’d hashed out the details of what they wanted for the Hooch workshop, I saw that Steven Grasse (booze god, creator of Sailor Jerry rum and Hendrick’s gin) was going to be talking about his book Colonial Spirits at a local bookshop. I immediately made plans to go, and I’m so glad I did. His talk was entertaining and informative, and the sample colonial cocktails were amazing.

6168iz-ss2l

Of course I bought the book (research!) and I’ve really been enjoying perusing it. How can you not love a book that’s intro includes: “These drinks may get you drunk. They may put hair on your chest. But they will not, we are proud to say with some measure of confidence, kill you.” Well ok then …

There’s a ton of interesting information in the book (both historical and anecdotal) as well as many recipes that I’m dying to try out! I’ve done a little brewing in my life, and I may have to put that experience (and a few friends and their brewing supplies) to work in the coming months.

I absolutely have to try out George Washington’s recipe for small beer. I know we’ve all read about small beer, and I’ve actually had it at reenactments, but I’ve never made it. In case anyone hasn’t heard of it, small beer (or small ale) is an ale with a low alcohol content that was commonly consumed by people the way we consume water today. I’ve always read that small ale was made by reusing the mash (so brew ale, then brew again, like reusing a tea bag). But George Washington and Grasse disagree. So this is going to have to be attempted.

gw

Luckily, some of the recipes don’t require brewing and I had all the ingredients on hand. So there was immediate experimentation (in the name of science and history!). My first experiment is the Hop Flip. It’s a combination of rum, beer, molasses, and a raw egg. Flips go back to at least the 17thC. They began as beer, rum, and some kind of sweetener, heated with a hot poker (basically, it’s a type of hot punch, something to warm your bones on a cold, damp night).

img_20161018_150651-1

I’m horrified to report that it’s not bad. Basically a lot like a hot, alcoholic egg cream. Not something that will be taking over from the Hot Toddy for me, but I’m not sorry I tried it and I’d totally make it again at an event.

Are there any historical drinks you wonder about as an author or a reader? Let me know in the comments and I’ll try to cover them in the upcoming months.

One of the questions I get a lot when giving clothing workshops is “How did people store their clothes”? The answers are obviously very different across the classes, but in general my audience wants to know about the gentry and nobility.

Let’s start with closets. Yes, closets existed. Both in the modern sense of a large cupboard in which you store things and in the more historical sense of “a smaller room off a main living space, where you also stored things”. You see modern-type built in closets in many period homes, though they’re often hidden. They usually flank fireplaces, doorways, or built-in nooks for beds. The period idea of a closet was part of a suite of rooms that made up a person’s private chambers. There would be a bedroom, a study or boudoir, and often a closet or dressing room. This all varied widely so there’s no hard and fast rule as to what set-up your characters might have (and don’t forget to take in the era in which the house was built).

clothes-press-3

Mahogany clothes press, c. 1730-1760. Interior contains both drawers and shelves. Victoria and Albert Museum.

Regardless of what rooms your house has, the clothing storage will be of three types: chests (the classic flip-top large box), chest of drawers (just like today) and the clothes press/wardrobe (not like the big one that leads to Narnia). Clothes presses are most similar to what Americans now call “high boys” (which are a form of raised clothes press).

clothes-press-1

Clothes Press, c.1775-1778, Chippendale. Interior contains both shelves and drawers. Victoria and Albert Museum.

Clothes presses have drawers at the bottom and then an open space with pull-out shelves at the top behind doors. Later on (late 19thC) you get the kind with half the space given over to hanging garments and half to shelves). So your clothing would be carefully folded and organized among these various options, but in general it would not be hung as it often is today (I’ve heard their might have been pegs or a line for awkward items like false rumps, hoops, etc., but I’ve never seen this in practice outside of satirical drawings of how the poor lived).

clothes-press-2

Japaned Clothes Press, c. 1815, Crace (likely made for Brighton Pavilion). Victorian and Albert Museum.

It’s also likely that clothes were cycled, so you didn’t have everything in your room at once, just the things you needed for the season you were in. Clothing for other seasons would be packed away and stored in the attics (hence the treasure troves occasionally unearthed   ). At the end of each season, you would decide what was worth packing away for use the next year and what you would get rid of (this retired clothing was generally a perq of the lady’s maid, who could refashion it for her own use or sell it).

clothes-press-4

English Clothes Press, c. 1750.

For more insight into period homes, I highly recommend Georgian & Regency Houses Explained by Trevor Yorke.

Let’s have fun and look at a male accessory today. I give you sleeve buttons!

During the Georgian era shirts did not open all the way down the front (no matter what you see on covers). They had a partial neck-opening from the collar to about mid-chest. So the shirt had to be pulled off over the head. They buttoned closed at the throat, though this is hidden by the cravat. The cuffs of the shirts were generally wide (2”-3”) and buttoned closed in an overlapping fashion (like a modern dress shirt, not like a French cuff). I have found extant sleeve buttons (aka cuff links) dating back to the 18th century, but all the extant shirts I’ve seen have buttons; I have not seen shirt studs pre-Victorian). So while they may not have been a common accessory, they’re something a man could have worn and something you can use as a plot point.

 

Late Georgian sleeve cuff

 

Silver and paste sleeve buttons, late 18th century.

Silver and agate sleeve buttons, 1770s-1820s

 

Gold sleeve buttons, early 19th century.

 

Are there any clothing items or accessories you’re curious about? Let me know and I’ll cover them in future posts!

My ongoing research into free blacks in Georgian London has netted me two more books. I’m going to talk about the first today: Colonel Despard: The Life and Times of an Anglo-Irish Rebel by Clifford D. Conner. All I knew going in was that Despard had a black wife. I was hoping to find out about how their relationship was viewed and how it affected his career as an officer, but the book focuses vary narrowly on his military career and his trial for rebellion.

Colonel Despard

 

There were tiny bits about his personal life that could be gleaned though. His wife, Catharine, was the daughter of an English curate in Jamaica (no information is provided as to whether her parents were married). She was clearly well-educated, and obviously moved in the same circles as the English officers and their wives. Despard married her in the middle of his career (probably in 1785), and promotions continued to follow, so the powers that be in the army didn’t seem to care. Neither did Nelson, who was a friend and testified in Despard’s defense. Catharine traveled with him to his various postings, and appears to have acted as his hostess when he was governing various territories in the West Indies.

Despard’s family on the other hand clearly never accepted the marriage. They referred to Catharine as Despard’s “black housekeeper” and after Despard’s death they offered no assistance to her or to their son (his uncle, General Despard, said that James had “not even an illegitimate claim upon him.”) What we do know is that Despard’s friends took care of them after Despard was executed (they were reportedly given a pension by Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cloncurry’s memoirs state that they lived with his family in Lyon for some years).
Their son, James Despard, went on to join the military (as an officer, which I think is worth noting). There are various reports of him (usually referred to as a “creole”) that scatter across the first decades of the nineteenth century. He was appointed a captain the London Milita in 1814 after serving in France and supposedly refusing an offer of a high position from Bonaparte (this I find doubtful given Bonaparte’s treatment of the Chevalier Saint-Georges). There are further anecdotes from his spiteful Aunt Jane suggesting that he ran away with an heiress.

So all in all, I read a lot of tedious military history and found the barest scraps of what I was interested in, but I’ll take what I can get when it comes to real life interracial marriages in the period.

It did lead me however to a post by Mike Jay who has also written a book about Despard (The Unfortunate Colonel Despard) that has a more detailed look at the marriage and Catharine. Let me quote it here:

According to Jay, this could well be the first known case of an English gentleman married to a free woman of color, which makes it all the more fascinating.

Follow
Get every new post delivered to your inbox
Join millions of other followers
Powered By WPFruits.com