Breakfast in the Regency

Urns and tea caddy in the dining room, A la Ronde (2015)
Breakfast is defined in Samuel Johnson’s dictionary as “the first meal.”1

Now, I don’t know about you, but breakfast was a do-it-yourself meal in my family home when I was growing up. It was not a social meal, and we would eat at different times, still dressed in our pyjamas, soon after waking up.

Breakfast in the Regency was quite different.

Print by T Rowlandson (1802-11) after H W Bunbury
What time was breakfast?

A Regency breakfast was norm...