Jane Austen's England Quotes

“Nation would triumph over all its adverse Fortune. Some eminent”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Personal hygiene, or lack of it, would undoubtedly shock us today, with the overpowering body odours and the stink of clothing, stale with sweat and often musty from damp houses. Some people smelled rather worse than others, particularly if employed in a noisome industry. This was an era before anti-perspirants, before the widespread use of soap, before a time when people washed their bodies and changed their clothing on a regular basis, and when virtually nobody immersed themselves in baths or showers. Everyone would have smelled, even genteel women like Jane Austen, who in mid-September 1796 admitted to Cassandra: ‘What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“From the 1790s, as a protest against the French Revolution, fashionable women cut their hair short in sympathetic imitation of victims’ hair before they were guillotined.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“In 1795 a tax of one guinea on hair-powder was made payable by the head of each household, and this triggered a radical change in men’s hairstyles. Instead of paying the tax, the Whigs cut their hair short, in a style called à la guillotine, after those forced to have their hair cropped before being executed during the French Revolution. Those Tories who paid the tax were called guinea-pigs.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“To display their higher status, professional men like clergy, lawyers and physicians had formerly worn voluminous, full-bottomed wigs – the big wigs of society – but by the late 1770s most gentlemen preferred smaller wigs, sometimes with pigtails or queues.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“in June 1799 Woodforde wrote: ‘Very cold indeed again to day, so cold that Mrs Custance came walking in her Spenser with a bosom-friend.’ 27 He meant that she had a large handkerchief or scarf at her throat to keep her warm, a fashion that arose because of the low necklines and acquired the name ‘bosom-friend’.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Short jackets known as spencers (after the 2nd Earl Spencer who started the trend) 12 became popular from the 1790s. This type of double-breasted jacket had no tails, though they were often put on over a traditional jacket with tails.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Clothing for men and women changed markedly, in both styles and fabrics, over Jane Austen’s lifetime. Following the French Revolution grotesquely elaborate fashions gave way to naturalistic styles, imitating the Classical world. Ladies wore simple gowns based on Greek and Roman styles that were copied from the many archaeological finds then being unearthed at places like Pompeii and Herculaneum. Men’s fashions were influenced by more practical military dress, which resulted in sober clothing, more suitable for country life than the extravagance of the urban fashions of the preceding period.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Some hosts did offer food that we would now discard, and just before Christmas 1778 Woodforde unashamedly set before his guests a dinner that included ‘part of a ham, the major part of which ham was entirely eaten out by the flies getting into it’. 142 Even so, his guests also stayed for supper, and ‘We were exceeding merry indeed all the night.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Table manners were of importance to the higher classes, although the poorest were more concerned with survival than etiquette. In a book on manners, the Reverend John Trusler warned how to avoid appearing low class or impolite: ‘Eating quick, or very slow, at meals, is characteristic of the vulgar; the first infers poverty, that you have not had a good meal for some time; the last, if abroad [dining out], that you dislike your entertainment: if at home [and eating slowly], that you are rude enough to set before your friends what you cannot eat yourself.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“In Georgian times lunch hardly existed, although for those who breakfasted early, a small snack might be eaten. In towns many shops sold pies and pastries, while street sellers offered shellfish and other ready-to-eat items. Dinner was the main meal, eaten at any time in the afternoon between two and five o’clock. The timing of dinner was related to the hours of daylight, since the cooks needed to work in daylight, especially for formal dinners with guests where preparations could take hours. Dinnertime for the elite became later and later, and in contrast to the meagre breakfast, a formal dinner could be a dazzling array of food. The first course, served on the table all at once, had numerous dishes, and was followed by a second course with a smaller selection of meats and fish, along with savoury and sweet items. Finally, a selection of nuts, sweetmeats and occasionally fruit constituted the dessert course, at which point the servants withdrew.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Better-off families kept their tea in special lockable tea-caddies to prevent it being pilfered by the servants. It tended to be used sparingly, so that it was made as a fairly weak drink, to which milk and sugar were added.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Busy most part of the afternoon in making some mead wine, to fourteen pound of honey, I put four gallons of water, boiled it more than an hour with ginger and two handfulls of dried elder-flowers in it, and skimmed it well. Then I put it into a small tub to cool, and when almost cold I put in a large gravey-spoon full of fresh yeast, keeping it in a warm place, the kitchen during night.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“The wealthy might have had ice, but water itself was not widely drunk because palatable supplies were not readily available. Elizabeth Ham recalled that for supper at her boarding school at Tiverton in Devon, ‘we had a little bit of bread with a little bit of cheese on it, and a little cider in a little mug. No one in these days ever dreamt of drinking water.’ 123 Devon was a county that made prodigious quantities of cider, but the main drink in England was ‘small beer’, also referred to as ‘small ale’ or ‘common beer’. Woodforde called it ‘table beer’, while strong ales were just ‘beer’ or ‘strong beer’. Small beer was safer than water, and because of its low alcohol content, it was not intoxicating.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“The wealthy had ice-houses in their gardens, in which ice could be kept successfully for much of the year.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Ice helped to chill food and drinks and enabled iced dishes to be made, including ice creams and sorbets. When she was staying at Lyme Regis in September 1804, Jane Austen wrote satirically to Cassandra: ‘Your account of Weymouth contains nothing which strikes me so forcibly as there being no ice in the town. For every other vexation I was in some measure prepared, and particularly for your disappointment in not seeing the Royal Family go on board…but for there being no ice what could prepare me? Weymouth is altogether a shocking place.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Poorer families could not even afford tallow candles, but might make rushlights, which were not taxed. Writing at Selborne in 1775, where he was curate, Gilbert White explained that after obtaining rushes for the wicks, their outer coating was peeled off except for one strip supporting the inner pith. After drying, the rushes were drawn through waste cooking grease and fat:”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Candles, made and sold by licensed chandlers, were heavily taxed, which encouraged their clandestine manufacture. 75 The best-quality ones were of beeswax – some were made from thin sheets of beeswax wrapped round a flax or cotton wick and others were laboriously manufactured as solid candles. 76 Such candles were favoured by the wealthy and the Church, and they were better for chandeliers (often called ‘lustres’) in public buildings like theatres, where the light would be reflected and magnified by the numerous pieces of glass (‘drops’). Beeswax candles might also be mounted in candelabra or candlesticks, or fixed on wall brackets. Also of high quality were candles of spermaceti, a waxy oil from the head of sperm whales. Unlike beeswax candles, these could be made in moulds. Both beeswax and spermaceti candles burned slowly and brightly, producing little smoke or smell.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Lighted candles were carried in holders to avoid spilling the hot wax, but walking too fast with the candle or walking through a draught could easily extinguish the flame. Outdoors, candles were put into protective metal lanterns (or ‘lanthorns’) with pierced sides or panels of thin translucent horn or sometimes of glass.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Smoking chimneys were so common that specialist workmen, ‘chimney doctors’, offered to remedy such problems.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“In March 1810 Louis Simond gave a vivid description of the more normal winter smog: It is difficult to form an idea of the kind of winter days in London; the smoke of fossil coals forms an atmosphere, perceivable for many miles, like a great round cloud attached to the earth. In the town itself, when the weather is cloudy and foggy, which is frequently the case in winter, this smoke increases the general dingy hue, and terminates the length of every street with a fixed grey mist, receding as you advance. But when some rays of sun happens to fall on this artificial atmosphere, its impure mass assumes immediately a pale orange tint…loaded with small flakes of soot…so light as to float without falling. This black snow sticks to your clothes and linen, or lights on your face. You just feel something on your nose, or your cheek,—the finger is applied mechanically, and fixes it into a black patch! 66”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Whitewash, a solution of lime and chalk mixed with other additives, was brushed on interior and exterior walls like paint. It took several days to set, forming a white surface that could be coloured with other substances; in some areas animal blood or vegetable dye was added to give exterior walls a pink colour. Whitewash was a cheap way of decorating rooms. More expensive options included textile hangings, wallpaper, painting and wainscoting. In 1817 William Holland was decorating parts of the vicarage at Over Stowey. His daughter’s bedroom had wallpaper, but he hired a painter for some of the woodwork, inside and out:”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Along with their servants, wealthy families moved ‘up to’ London from their country establishments, renting a house or staying in their own property for ‘the Season’, which coincided with parliamentary sittings. Benjamin Silliman explained that ‘in England, down means from London, and up, to London: they speak of going down into the country, no matter in what direction. The Londoners talk of going down to Scotland. Is this a figure of speech unconsciously adopted because London is the great fountain supplying all the kingdom with streams of wealth and knowledge. Perhaps the country might dispute the claim.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“William Pitt the Elder, who died in 1778, once declared: ‘The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail – its roof may shake – the wind may blow through it – the storm may enter – the rain may enter – but the King of England cannot enter! – all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“At the age of seven Jane Austen was sent away to Oxford with her sister Cassandra and her cousin Jane Cooper to be taught by a private tutor. 59 In the summer of 1783, after the tutor and her pupils moved to Southampton, all three girls fell ill with typhus, and Jane Austen nearly died. She and her sister recuperated at home and then joined their cousin in 1785 at the Reading Ladies’ Boarding School, but were removed at the end of the following year, putting a stop to their tuition. By the time Jane Austen was eleven years old, her formal education was over.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“A few years later, when she was fourteen, Holland elaborated: ‘She has a thirst after knowledge of every kind to the greatest degree. She has made great proficiency in Latin and Greek and is making the same advance in French and Italian…It is a pity she was not a boy for then such studies would turn to better account…I know not where this will end but is not a likely mode to get her well married.’ 56 Holland’s own daughter Margaret was given a basic education at home, with private tutors for music and French, but she never married. In spite of her education, Elizabeth did marry in 1825, at the age of twenty-eight, becoming the wife of John Sandford, Archdeacon at Wells in Somerset.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“In Somerset, Holland grumbled about one educated girl, Elizabeth Poole: ‘This little girl is very clever and learns surprizingly and writes Latin letters but I should not like any woman the better for understanding Latin and Greek. All pedantick learning of this kind makes them conceited”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Some grammar schools were founded even earlier, in the medieval period, including Winchester College (1382) and Eton College (1440), which was granted a monopoly 10 miles around Eton ‘so it may excel all other grammar schools…and be called the lady mother and mistress of all other grammar schools’.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods

“Ink could be bought in shops, but many households made their own. In 1805 a mineral agent called William Jenkin wrote down his recipe: ¾ lb. of Alleppo Galls – bruised (but not small)
4 oz. of Clean Coperas – 4 oz. of Gum Arabick
1 oz. of Roche Allum –
Put the above in 3 quarts of rain water; shake it often for about 6 or 7 days.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England

“The upper classes adopted affected forms of talking, which was mocked by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey, where the heroine, Catherine Morland, says, ‘I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible’, to which the well-read young clergyman, Henry Tilney, replies, ‘Bravo! – an excellent satire on modern language.”
― Roy A. Adkins, Jane Austen's England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods