Jane Austen discussion
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Persuasion
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What's the problem with Persuasion and Mrs Smith in particular?
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I guess how people sounded when they spoke is hard for us to tell until recording was technically possible.There was a fascinating programme a while back showing how Queen Elizabeth has modified her speaking voice enormously since she became Queen. When they played old clips of her giving a speech she sounds incredibly 'strangulated'....now she sounds a lot more 'normal' (though still 'affected' up to a point, just not as much).
No Briton, just a lifelong Anglophile! I hail from California.I was fascinated by your comments. Hadn't thought about the coat of arms aspect, which I may work into the story. Thank you!
Part of my fascination with the year 1800 was that it was a time of transition. My stories are set in a corner of Surrey--still rural, with no industry, but heavily influenced by the Industrial Revolution's social upheavals nonetheless. Also, the area is close enough to London that many "new men," especially those coming from finance, bought properties there and set themselves up as weekend squires. Also, very successful craftsmen like Broadwood of pianoforte fame bought estates there. There were still old families in the area, but the greatest of them were absentee landlords. It was also a stronhold of the Opposition, a group more open to people rising on the basis of their abilities.
The father of my protagonist is trying to rise through connections. He is a distant cousin of, and shares a name with, one of the oldest families in the area. He owns a good-size chunk of land (about 400 acres) in his own right and is a successful farmer, but does not have a good education or intellectual interests. His property was at one point in history described as a manor, but without legal basis. So he convinces his exalted relation to pull strings to get his son (my hero) into Winchester, believing that education and making friends among the sons of gentlemen will raise the family's status in the next generation. (Sadly, my hero does not share his ambitions, which is what sets the story in motion.)
Does that make sense to you?
Yes, I would say it makes huge sense. I would say that 400 acres was, indeed, a pretty good land holding. My understanding is that 'manors' per se were defined in the Domesday book, and so if the place was identified and labelled in Domesday, then it 'was' de facto (and possibly de jure!) a 'manor'. In which case it would have been assigned to a 'lord of the manor' and probably held either directly, or as part of a much larger fiefdom from a feudal lord, etc.Again, from what (little) I understand about 'original land holdings' any land that was not part of a manor, was simply 'uncultivated'. Some uncultivated land could be part of, say, a royal hunting forest, and some could be 'common' land, with no specified owner (or feudal holder?). Whether uncultivated land fell into any other category I don't know.
Uncultivated land could be (I would assume?) uncultivated for only one of two reasons - it was not suitable geologically for arable or dairy farming (soil quality too poor) either 'at all' (eg, acidic moorland) or it was at best 'marginal' land. The other reason (from what I assume??) is that it was being used for 'something else that was preferable to cultivation' (eg, assigned for hunting ground by the king etc) or, more economically useful (indeed, essential!), it was used as forest land to produce both timber for building and charcoal for heating/metal-working etc (Being on the borders of the Weald this must have been especially true for your Dorking!).
Going back a bit, again my (limited) understanding of maedival economics is that population in England peaked in the 13th century, when more and more marginally-farmable land was brought into cultivation, and serfdom and feudalism peaked, and it was only in the dreadful 14th C and the horrendous population crash of the Black Death (wiping out about a third to half the population) that 'de-agriculturalisation' took place, with significant amounts of land coming out of cultivation (no one to farm it)(whole villages were depopulated and abandoned). The 15th C was actually (apart from the wars of the roses!) a 'golden age' for the peasantry, as labour was so scarce post-Black Death, that serfdom become virtually unenforceable, and the shift to wages started. Then, as population grew again, by the end of the 16th C the poor were again 'exploitable' (and getting poorer thanks to the monetary/coinage inflation caused by the huge influx of silver/gold from the Americas). It wasn't really until trade really started booming across the Atlantic and to the Far East and India, that general wealth could increase, and create a consumerist society eager for goods, and then, of course, with consumer demand outstripping supply, manufacturers needed to increase output, hence seeking to come up with automation and steam power etc etc. And off we went to become a modern industrialised economy!
Across all this lies the issue of global climate, and the 'Little Ice Age' etc etc, which I still haven't quite figured out! I believe agricultural output, harvests, etc, were high in the first half of the eighteenth century, but lower in the second half.
Then, of course, in your period, we have the impact of the Napoleonic Wars, and the pressure not only from that, and the booming population, making arable farming more profitable thanks to the artificial pricing of the Corn Laws (passed by Tory land-owners to protect their income).
So, again, I am assuming (?) (and your research will know this too of course whether I'm right in this or not!) that your period was a good time to be an arable farmer, as wheat prices were high courtesy of the Corn Laws?? Which would be an excellent basis for a successful land-owning farmer of this period to be thinking of gentrification!
I would say you are spot on with your hero's father seeking to exploit what family contacts her could, as having a higher-up 'sponsor' was incredibly useful (happened to one of my forebears, who had an Admiral as a 'sponsor'/godfather, which did him a lot of good when he wanted to get a commission in the army )(went off to fight, like Ross Poldark, in the American War of Independence!).I think Winchester is a great choice of potential school - not as 'posh' as Eton/Harrow, plus closer to Dorking. Not sure about then, but in Victorian times it had a reputation for being 'for clever boys'.
You may think it worth while to check out with the College of Arms (not sure just how approachable they are!??) what would have been the chances of applying for a Grant of Arms? Given that they might be able to claim kinship with an existing armigerous family would presumably give them an opening? It's an area that isn't usually discussed much these days - as I say, I'm not sure the College still grants arms to 'gentlemen', and we usually only hear about it when someone new - like Meghan Markle! - gets to choose their own coat of arms. (They are also granted to 'bodies' such as universities, livery companies, that sort of thing, plus newly created Life Peers who then sit in the House of Lords) (but don't pass their title to their descendents).
Having just checked their web site
https://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/se...
apparently individuals can still apply - it costs over £6k to do so!!! Not sure what the success rate is!!! ((ie, if they say 'no, you're just too common as muck!' !!!!!! :) )
Just a thought, but though you say there wasn't a great deal of industrialisation near Dorking, it would, as I mentioned, be pretty close to the Weald, which had lots of wealthy ironmasters who, like wealthy yeoman/land-owning farmers would have somewhat 'intermediate' social status??PS - apparently if you are an American with an ancestor from Britain before 1783 you are eligible to apply for an honorary coat of arms!
I believe my great-grandmother did apply for a coat of arms, as well as paying a fortune for a spurious genealogy that supposedly traced her back to the Battle of Hastings. In a famous family tale, she crowed to her husband that she was descended from ten English kings. He stared frostily down the table at her and said, "Perhaps--but can you match them with queens?" And that was the end of that.Regarding manors, you have put your finger on the root of the question: the characters' property was referred to as a manor in a record from the sixteenth century, but not in Domesday. So it was not a manor but close enough in stature to be occasionally regarded as one by the untutored.
In the corner of Surrey that is my beat, the closest thing to industry in 1800 was lime works. There were breweries and nursery grounds and chandlers--pretty much all small businesses. Much of the land is not very fertile. The charcoal industry had collapsed and even the watercress business was gone! Plus the 1790s had seen three spectacularly bad harvests, so there was a lot of misery. These conditions open wide the door for the plot driver of the first story--smuggling.
But we have strayed far from the topic of this thread and should doubtless desist for the sake of our fellows!
Gosh, which ten kings??!!!!!Over here in the UK we have a TV series called 'Who do you think you are?' in which various TV personalities have their ancestry traced. Obviously they can't do all their forebears (!) but they do pick out some interesting ones, usually to illustrate how different lives were 'in olden days'.....it's part social history as a programme, referenced to a particular individual (ie, the TV personality).
One relatively recent one was about a guy that is a 'Cockney' (I think he is in a soap opera set in the East End - not my thing so I'm not entirely sure who is is!). He was 'well chuffed' (!) to discover he was descended from Edward III!! (I think the genealogist did say that over hundreds of years that is not actually that uncommon, and there are loads of people with similar descent - but hey, he knows it for sure now, and he was very thrilled to find out!)
Just before returning to Austen, one of the 'sad' things I feel is when folk here, or, worse, 'ex-colonials' (!) pay money to buy a 'lord of the manor' title. They actually mean pretty much nothing at all, and are, basically, little more than a scam/con.Never do it!
(It's like the College of Arms warning people that coats of arms are awarded to an individual, and then pass to their descendants, they are NOT awarded to a 'family name')
The comparable show here is Finding Your Roots, and I'm totally addicted to it! Around here, though, there's less interest in being descended from toffs and more fear of being descended from slave owners. I'm too much of a revolutionary to want a coat of arms or any of the trappings of aristocracy. Coming from a mix of Puritan and Quaker stock, I like to embrace the ordinary and the plain! (As you can tell, the spirit of insurrection has not died out in America--😄)
I have to say I can't see why people 'feel bad' that their ancestors were 'disreputable', including slave owners. After all, slavery was 'endemic' in the Americas and, as in the UK, the situation surely was that with the great polarity in society, it used to be said here that 'you either HAD servants or you WERE a servant'....And after all, your ancestor might always have been a 'nice' owner who actually did look after their slaves, just as some landlords and employers-of-servants here were 'good' employers.
That said, one of the UK 'Who do you think you are?' subjects is a black TV newsreader, who went back to the Caribbean for the programme, and discovered, to her clear disquiet, that one of her ancestors actually was a white slave owner....but he had a pretty 'benevolent' relationship with her female ancestress. (Shades, I think, of Thomas Jefferson, who, I believe (??) had a relationship with a 'black slave' whom he never manumitted - and the reason is, isn't it, that had he manumitted her he could never have been 'allowed' to have a relationship with a 'free black' ....it was actually outlawed?)
I do think, overall, that 'we' are not responsible for our ancestors, and most of us have 'black sheep' down the line (I had one who was a bigamist!)
The lesson, surely, we must take away is how 'grim' it was in 'olden days' for nearly all the population.....
We have "Who Do You Think You Are?" here in the U.S. too. It airs on TLC, a cable channel and we can access the BBC edition on YouTube but now they're only showing it in a few minute increments. I watched Olivia Coleman's episode and her family history reads like an Austen novel! Waves at Abigail! We're likely related through some of the Puritans.
No doubt, QNPoohBear! Any of these surnames strike a chord? Plummer, Thompson, Drake, Kittredge, Cushing, Alden, Adams, Standish, Smith? If so, then yes.
Beth,Alexander Armstrong, UK comedian and TV game show host, is also a direct descendant of Edward III. I would love to know how closely he is related to Danny Dyer!
Beth-In-UK wrote: "Gosh, which ten kings??!!!!!
Over here in the UK we have a TV series called 'Who do you think you are?' in which various TV personalities have their ancestry traced. Obviously they can't do all th..."
Danny Dyer, that's him! A real 'diamond geezer' as his TV persona!! I didn't know that about Alexander Armstrong, but he's quite 'posh' I believe - he's related to someone else famous and I can't think who now, possibly someone like Judy Dench?
He and DD must, I assume be cousins of some kind - and umpteen generations apart!
One of the stats I've always found shocking (and rather horrid!) is that something like one in whatever of us is related to Ghengis Khan of all things - I think on the grounds that he raped SO many women his DNA got just about everywhere!
(And now THERE is an ancestor to be ashamed of! )(I think Bronowski in his outstanding Ascent of Man - which was seminal viewing when I grew up, and, along with Kenneth Clark's equally seminal 'Civilisation' just about educated me in Western Culture - got it spot on when he said that the Mongol Hordes, and all their kith and kin over the centuries, were simply thieves and parasites who preyed on the rest of mankind.)
(Interestingly, and I suppose obviously in the end, now that I think about it, that whole era of 'raiding and invading' which reaches from long before the Roman Empire - and did for it as well of course - was only finally and decisively ended with the development of firepower. Only when guns replaced horses as the key weapon, could the hordes of central asia which had plagued both east and west for millennia, finally be cowed into peace. A fascinating history book called 'After Tamburlaine' deals with this subject - Tamburlaine being the last of the Central Asian raiders and invaders)
The British Isles, though safe from Mongol Hordes, were, alas, also subject to local parasitic raiders and invaders - the Vikings. And in their case, they, ironically, got powerful thanks to technology, not the reverse - it was the development of marine technology that invented the longships that enabled them to make such effective lightning raids on vulnerable Anglo-Saxon England, as well as Ireland, the Low Countries, France etc.So I guess 'technology' can work both in favour of 'civilisation' and against it!
If she sounded 'local' (whatever the 'local' accent is around Dorking) then it would be harder for him to be accepted as a 'gentleman'.
However, it's yet again a tricky issue. Some 'landed gentry' (squires etc) did have 'local' accents it seems??
I would suspect that once public schools came in in a big way (ie, not just Eton and Harrow), during the 19th C, and it became normal for 'the sons of gentlemen' to go to boarding school, none of them would have emerged sounding 'local' at all, but would all have adopted what was Victorian 'received pronunciation'/Queen's English etc. (Which, to this day, remains the key most obvious 'class signifier' about any individual.)